Options for Conceptualizing Research in Education

While working with five committee members, I'm realizing that there are many different ways to organize research. And by that I mean, drafting a concept of what it is you're doing. Also, there's a different between conceptualizing your introduction and conceptualizing your entire research project.  What I offer here is a list of different options for conceptualizing either one of these, with hopes that I will add to it and find the ones that work best for most people.

Conceptualizing Your Research Project

• Vee Heuristic/Godvin's Vee (from Learning How to Learn, Novak & Gowin 1984)
• Concept Mapping/Semantic Nets (part of Research Methods Knowledge Base)
• Entailment Meshes 

Conceptualizing Your Introduction

• Funnel approach - general to specific
• Finding a gap, identifying the gap, and filling the gap (like a doughnut)

Choosing a Topic

Even though it's late in the game, it's still helpful sometimes to go back and make sure I'm on track with my original ideas.  Here is a website with some helpful ideas about choosing a graduate research topic: 

http://www.cgu.edu/pages/891.asp